California and USC engineers team up to study potential tsunami scenarios

by Scott Sterling

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As the world pauses to remember the devastating earthquake and tsunami that ravaged Japan last year, California is taking precautions to brace the coast in case something similar happens here.

According to R&D, engineers from USC and the state of California will use hydrodynamic computer modeling and past tsunami data to study how the state’s coast is affected when they occur. One of the primary goals of the study is to create new coastal flooding maps and potential escape routes.

"California is being proactive in its effort to re-evaluate certain elements of its tsunami preparedness based on lessons learned from the Japan event," said Jose Borrero, the Adjunct Research Professor of the USC Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and one of the study’s primary conductors. "During the Japan tsunami, even though we knew how big the waves were going to be, we severely underestimated the strength and duration of the currents."

The California Geological Survey, the California Emergency Management Agency, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency will jointly fund the study. Work is set to begin soon and continue through 2012.

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Follow the blog at @PacificSwell and Molly at @KPCCmolly.